Brendan Rodgers Celtic dressing room fury will strike fear in to players for DAYS as 'soft' tag leaves a scar

The Irishman took no prisoners as he fumed at his Celtic players after a dismal first half

Callum McGregor admits Brendan Rodgers' dressing room blast at his Celtic players will sting for days to come.

Being branded soft is an accusation no professional footballer takes lightly. Let alone when it’s fired in your direction by your own manager. McGregor might have been the catalyst for Celtic’s rescue job in Perth on Sunday afternoon but he wasn’t hiding from a first half that was about as painful as it’s been for Celtic this season.

And he insists the manager was spot on when he laid into his players for being soft, for getting bullied and being too comfortable in their shirts. As warning shots go to players - and coming off the back of Rodgers’ admission he needs more quality last week - this one was delivered with a bazooka. Asked if the managers’ words sting, the skipper said: “Yes. As a professional you never want to be called soft. That will sit with the players in three, four, five days’ time because nobody likes to get a sore one off the manager.

“We have to take it on the chin and we deserved it. You never want to be soft. That’s the one thing when you’re a good football team and people try to look for areas to exploit then the last thing as a professional footballer you want to be called is soft. That hurts the group. We can’t have too many moments like that because you’ll see teams will try to play on it. We’ve got to be better and stronger in those moments especially when we are defending the box.

“It was definitely fair what he said. The first half performance was nowhere near good enough to be a Celtic team.

“These places are difficult to come. If you don’t start the game well it gives them momentum. You could see after 25 minutes they got a couple of presses on and their tails went u[. They get the goal and it makes the game even harder.

“Credit to them. But we were miles short in the first half. The gaffer was spot on in terms of what he said. He was looking for a reaction and the pleasing thing was we rectified it and won the game.

“It’s important we keep winning. When you’re a team that sets high standards and drop below it then it’s the manager’s job to tell you then the players job to fix it.”

The immediate effect of the half-time roasting was clear for all to see as Celtic turned in a second half performance far more worthy of champions. McGregor’s fizzing half volley drew them level on 67 minutes before Matt O’Riley and James Forrest completed the turnaround. And the skipper reckons the turnaround could prove to be a massive moment in their season.

He said: “We spoke in the changing room before we went out that we’d got ourselves in that mess so we have to get ourselves out of it again.

“We knew we had 45 or 50 minutes to rectify it because we don’t want to drop points and everyone knew that. So it was a case of trying to start well in the second half and then the game plays out the way it did. The intent was there to get ourselves out of trouble.

“It could turn out to be a big half for us. We have all been in football a long time now and you are never going to play well all the time. You have to accept that. But what you can’t accept is probably the level or performance in the first half, we can’t accept that.

“In this period we have so many games you’ve got to keep winning. It doesn’t matter how, you’ve got to keep winning.

“Hopefully when we get to the end of the season we look back on this 45 minutes as an important one.

“We had the strength of character to go out and rectify it. Every game is important, every half of football is important and we have to stay in that mindset.”

McGregor has now scored more goals - six - against St Johnstone than any other side in the Premiership. But this one - his first of the season - could be the biggest of the lot.

He said: “That’s a nice stat but the most important thing is the team wins.

“I knew I was going to hit it on the half volley as soon as it dropped. It’s one of those you have to shoot. I caught it clean and knew as soon as I hit it it had a chance. It was a good strike and I was glad to see it going in.

“I thought the second half we looked much more like ourselves in terms of the intent and aggression we played with. We started the half well and the goal was coming but needed something like that or a bit of luck.

“You see the fans get a lift and the players get a lift and performance levels go up another notch. Two other brilliant finishes from Matt and James takes the game away.”